5. Be useful, be fearless or both. Simply being useful is a worthwhile goal.

This one doesn't seem like much of a tip to me. It reads more like a very brief soul-inspiring speech - "being useful is a worthwhile goal" - to rally the business bloggers together and advance for their cause.

It's probably a much-needed pep talk for some because maintaining a constant barrage of blog posts can quickly become tiring. Looking at my own progress and adding-up all the hours spent typing into this blog, I must've lost about 10 hours of sleep thus far in my desperate attempts to get a post completed before the day is done.

So what's in it for a blogger if the only reward awaiting you is bags under the eyes and a stronger addiction to your favourite caffeinated beverage? Well... I don't think I have the answer to that. If you're a writer and need practice writing, then blogging usually helps. I mean, the only way to get better at writing is through practice, err, writing.

But hey, you're not just doing it for yourself. Whatever the subject matter of your blog, somebody out there could find it useful. Maybe you're writing about the process you went through to build that new deck for your house which other DIYers out there could find handy. Maybe it's a blog about your pet and experiences with taking care of said pet which another potential pet owner could find pointers in. Or, if you're blogs are subject-less like mine for this month of April and are just doing it for the lols, then maybe somebody out there will find it funny, appreciate the attempt at humour, and it could put a lol in their day.

And without knowing it, you've suddenly become useful, and that's always a worthwhile goal.

6. Ask your blogging buddy to check each post, and stop you from being too personal, leaking company secrets or breaking the law.

Blogging buddy... gotta get me one of those. But if they're there to prevent me from doing any of the above, then it might be a little too late for that.

I've been pretty shameless when putting my own life stories up on the internet, and the only reason I haven't already disclosed all of my personal secrets is that I don't blog enough (and this month is going to cover my secrets-revealed quota for the year). And while I don't think I've leaked company secrets, I have revealed enough about my work environment such that you could easily guess as to who my employers (or as I sometimes refer to the upper-most of management, our evil overlords) are.

So this tip is a pretty useful one, and one which I would do well to follow. The closest thing I have to a blogging buddy are my Facebook friends who read this, and then point out my myriad spelling mistakes, or write on my wall that I'm going about it (ie: life) wrong. Of course by then, company sekrits have already been leaked, personal stories have already become public, and my evil overlords are contacting HR, giving them another reason to tap my phone or track my IM conversations.

"Put another bug on Em's phone; he's talking shit about us on the internets again."